FBI Files Provide Chilling Look Into the Mind of Jeffrey Dahmer

"True crime is one way that we try to make sense of transgression in society. How we tell these stories, and how depict the criminal's motivation, reflects our desire to believe that there's reason and order in the world, rather than chaos and evil," Golub says. "So, we search for explanations that may not really be there. We desperately need to believe that there is a human explanation for monstrosity. Otherwise, it's terrifying — what are we really dealing with out there?"

But throughout the FBI transcripts of several interviews with Dahmer, he never placed any blame nor gave any explanation for why he murdered. During an interview with the FBI in August 1992, he was asked if any childhood events contributed to his becoming a serial murderer and Dahmer said no.

"It's still a mystery to me," he told the FBI. "I have no idea why I started getting the fantasies and thoughts when I was about 16. That's when it started kicking in." Two years later in 1978 — at age 18 — he committed his first murder, hitchhiker Steven Hicks.

Even after he was caught, he repeated this assertion in a 1993 jailhouse interview with Nancy Glass of "Inside Edition." "The person to blame is sitting right across from you. It's the only person," Dahmer said. "Not parents, not society, not pornography. I mean, those are just excuses."

Dahmer's killing accelerated wildly when he moved to a one-bedroom apartment on Milwaukee's Oxford Street, as portrayed in "Monster" (he told the FBI it helped provide him more opportunity). There he killed another 12 men in the months between May 1990 and July 1991. It's also when his crimes turned especially heinous and included post-mortem sodomy, decapitation and cannibalism. He often dismembered his victims and kept their body parts as "mementos."

"[Cannibalism] started out as experimentation," Dahmer told the FBI. "It made me feel like they were part of me."

Dahmer managed to hide his fetish for far too long, despite being questioned by the police multiple times. Once the police pulled him over while he was driving with plastic bags that contained body parts of a victim in his back seat, "I couldn't believe it; I thought I was dreaming," Dahmer told the FBI after the cops didn't search his car.

A second — and more shocking incident — was when police were responding to a 911 call for a badly beaten man. It was 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone who had escaped Dahmer's apartment. Dahmer showed up just before the police and convinced them Sinthasomphone was a friend who'd just had too much to drink. Police took the two back to his apartment and Dahmer killed Sinthasomphone days later.

Many critics — including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who led an August 1991 rally to call for justice for the Black community — suggested Dahmer may have been stopped earlier if the police cared more about the Black community. Glenda Cleveland, Dahmer's Black neighbor called 911 repeatedly over her concern for the dazed and beaten Sinthasomphone.

Despite multiple encounters with the police, it wasn't until Tracy Edwards nearly became Dahmer's 18th victim that the murders finally came to an end. Edwards, who met Dahmer in a bar July 22, 1991, went back to Dahmer's apartment, but escaped after Dahmer held him there for hours. Edwards flagged down a Milwaukee police office after finally escaping.

When Edwards reported what happened, the FBI and local officers searched Dahmer's apartment and found remains of 11 victims, plus tools used to torture and dismember bodies. They promptly arrested Dahmer, making it his fifth time in custody — and at least the 10th time police had stopped him or searched his home.

Once he was taken into custody, Dahmer waived his rights to a lawyer and confessed to 17 murders in detail. He even admitted to being sexual gratified by several of the killings and subsequent acts, something the Netflix series spends much of its time highlighting.

"A lot of that has roots in the 1980s when FBI profilers started linking serial murder with sexual sadism," Golub says. "Ever since, we've assumed there's a connection between serial killers and transgressive sexuality."

Linking these together sells stories, Golub says, even if it demonizes sexual behavior that isn't considered "normal." Of course, he says, Dahmer's crimes and confessions are horrific, but it's important to remember that retelling his story by Netflix is for entertainment value — not truth.

On Feb. 17, 1992, Dahmer was sentenced to 15 life sentences, thanks in part to the brave testimony of Edwards. Families gave victim statements in the courtroom; the one from Rita Isbell's, the sister of victim Errol Lindsey — is hard to forget.

Dahmer, 34, was beaten to death in the Columbia Correctional Institution Nov. 28, 1994, by inmate Christopher Scarver. Perhaps this was one twist Dahmer saw coming. "I know my time in prison will be terrible, but I deserve whatever I get because of what I have done," he told the FBI.